GENERATION Z THE COMPLETE BOX SET: NOVELS 1-3

by Peter Meredith

  Chapter 22

  Jillybean was back and the first thing that struck her was the smell. She had a mask uselessly dangling around her neck. She snapped it back in place as Stu explained what had been happening. He gave her a four-sentence abridged version of events, but with the sensory clues being fed to her second by second, it was enough.

  “I’m a queen. Interesting.”

  He gave her a searching look. “That was Eve. That was her being childish.”

  “Yes, it sure was,” she agreed. “I’m just afraid what will happen when she comes back and she’s not a queen. Her temper tantrums can be deadly. Besides, from what you’ve told me about these people they are in need of some sort of central authority.”

  She was probably right. “But a queen?” he asked. “Really?”

  Jenn had overheard most of what they had been saying. “Aren’t all queens kinda bad?” The only queens she had ever heard about were evil ones from stories her father had read her during that brief interlude between her mother’s death and his. “And are we gonna have to call you, ‘your Highness’ or something like that?”

  “I haven’t given it that much thought. All the same, I will need some sort of honorific.”

  “Can’t we talk about this later?” Mike asked. “We gotta figure out what we’re going to do with them.” He nodded over at the Corsairs. As they had been talking, the eight prisoners had been whispering back and forth, making Mike very nervous.

  Jillybean appraised them, and where Eve’s eyes had been alight with fiery madness, hers were disconcertingly cool. Tony opened his mouth. She cut him off before he could say a word. “You will have your turn to speak. Until then be quiet.” Louder, she addressed the crowds. “I need eight of the least sick among you to step forward.”

  Only six men and women came shuffling forward; one of the men attempted a formal bow, only he inexplicably bent his knees at the same time, turning the bow into a crooked bob. Jillybean divided the group in two, sending half to get wood for a fire and the other half to get extra weapons and help guard the prisoners.

  When it was understood what Jillybean wanted, fifteen others joined the first six and soon there were plenty of guns pointed at the Corsairs. Someone even brought over the big chair Tony had used as a throne, which Jillybean didn’t hesitate to plant herself in, sitting across from what amounted to a bonfire, staring at the prisoners.

  “Let’s dispense with this unpleasantness,” she began, speaking in a clear, distinct voice. “Would anyone like to bring official charges against this man?” She pointed at Tony, knowing he was the leader but not knowing his name. There was some hesitation and she added, “You have nothing to fear from these men. They cannot hurt you anymore. Now, I ask again, would anyone like to bring official charges against this man?”

  Every hand in the room went up. “Lacking physical evidence, I will need at least three witnesses to any one of his murders.”

  “We all saw him kill Maevis,” someone said. “He hit her with a hammer, square on the head, right over there by the exit door. She was trying to escape and he wanted to make her an example, is what he said.” Heads went up and down and murmurs of agreement went around the room.

  Jillybean turned to Tony who threw on a counterfeit smile that fooled no one. “This is going to be my trial? A bunch of people ganging up on me? That isn’t fair.” Jillybean said nothing to this. She only sat, staring at him with an expectant air. The sweat on his glistening bald head began to run in rivulets. “Look, they were sick when we got here and I was trying to do my best under the circumstances. Th-that woman? She was stealing. She was trying to run off with valuable supplies. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Is this true? Was she stealing supplies?”

  One man yelled out, “Hell no!” A second later the entire place erupted with people screaming curses and throwing things. Jillybean let it go on for some time before she stood and raised her arms. “Enough. The defendant will now call his own witnesses.” When the warehouse people began to murmur angrily she cried, “Silence! If we wish to be a fair and just people we must allow the accused their day in court. Besides, he may only call reputable witness. Other Corsairs are not considered reputable or credible for that matter.”

  There had been a ray of hope in Tony’s eyes but now that was gone. He began blowing like a bull, his eyes darting, his anger a physical force that was almost palpable, made the warehouse people tremble.

  Jillybean was not outwardly affected by this display and only sat perfectly straight upon the throne with that infuriating calm of hers. She waited sixty seconds before asking, “Well?”

  “This isn’t fair! You made a promise!”

  “Do you have a witness to call or not? There are plenty to choose from.” The warehouse people found this cold jab hilarious and those with the strength cried out pick me, pick me as they waved their hands. Of course, Tony could pick none of them and he only stood there in a rage, cursing under his breath until Jillybean pronounced him guilty.

  This revived the people even more and many yelled out to kill him right then and there with a dozen ideas, all of them sickening. Jillybean felt her head swirl at them and she could feel Eve inside of her eager to come out, eager to get to skinning Tony alive, or boiling him to death, or sawing him in two, lengthways.

  “No,” she said, standing, one hand on the arm of her chair to steady herself. “I will not be the Queen of scum. If I am to be queen it will be of a civilized people. So, decide right now if that is what you want. Do you want to give in to your primal lusts or do you wish to be saved? Do you want me as your queen or do I let the Corsairs have you?”

  In a flash, the ones calling for revenge clapped their hands over their mouths and the others who had only been wishing for it in the dirty warrens of their corrupt little hearts, held their breath. Instinctively, she was playing them perfectly, pulling at the thin shreds of their emotions, doling out hope with one hand and withholding it with the other. She dangled it over their heads like a master holding a treat for a begging dog.

  Ten minutes before, having a queen as their leader would have been laughed at, now they were pleading for her to stay, a few even crawling forward, saying, “Please, please, please.”

  Every time he heard the word “queen” Stu felt like he was slipping deeper into some bizarre dream and each time, he couldn’t help sneaking a quick glance at Jillybean as if he might see Eve peeking out from her bushy hair, or lurking in the depths of her eyes, with her hands on the levers and gears, working the girl’s body.

  But he saw nothing of the sort. In the warm glow of the dancing fire she seemed to fade in and out, still he could see perfectly her full lips and the soft curve of her face. Just then she was absurdly beautiful, and he could tell that everyone else thought so, as well.

  Jillybean turned suddenly and he jumped as if she could read his thoughts. She always seemed to know what he was thinking, while she was an utter blank to him. Eve was the opposite: an open book, her feelings spilled out of her like molten lava; as if they had to come out or they would destroy her.

  “It’s necessary,” she said. “You’re going to have to trust me.”

  Trust her? She was beautiful and smart and kind—he couldn’t stop thinking about her, but how could he trust a woman who had carried a pipe bomb on a supposedly humanitarian mission? That hadn’t been Eve who did that, it had been Jillybean. “Listen, you have to quash this whole idea of being queen,” Stu said, as she let the moment draw out, looking as if she were on the verge of leaving, taking away the privilege of her presence. “If it was just you, I’d be good with it, but it’s going to be her as well. Think about what Eve would do with that much power.”

  “Trust me, I have given it more thought than you know. Now, if you don’t mind.” She clambered up on the armrests of the chair, holding up one hand until the place quieted. “I will stay and save you but you must believe in me and do as I command without hesitation. My anger can be as great as my love as
these Corsairs are soon to find out.”

  The room let out a ghostly sigh and she knew that they were hers. They would believe in her and they would allow themselves to be commanded without question. They would fear her anger and crave her love.

  “I will now hear witnesses against the rest of them.” It went quickly. Dropping back down into the chair, Jillybean listened attentively, but with even more attentiveness, she gauged the crowd, discovering that four of the men, including Tony and Brian were truly, deeply evil, while the other four were less so, perhaps evil only by the product of their circumstances.

  Still, each had committed murder and death should have been their reward, but Jillybean needed strong backs. There was a ton of work that needed to be done in a very short amount of time.

  “I have made my decisions,” she said, standing in front of her throne and gazing across the fire at Tony the only one of them who had the will to look up. She hesitated, holding the crowd hostage, building the moment so that when she said, “The Queen finds them guilty as charged,” they breathed out a huge collective sigh.

  Tony spat on the ground in front of him and she smiled, sadly, instead of wasting herself on anger. “There are varying degrees of guilt, however,” she said, jerking the crowd right back under her thumb. “And there will be varying punishments. The three on the end, as well as you in the blazer step to the side. By my grace and only by my grace, your lives are being spared for the moment.”

  The crowd buzzed like gossiping insects in uncertainty. This she stopped by focusing on Tony and the last three. “The rest will be killed by asphyxiation. This will be done immediately, but only after they have thanked me for my compassion and have apologized to you for the crimes they have committed.”

  “The hell I will,” Tony snorted, saying almost the exact words Jillybean had expected, and in fact hoped for. The first challenge to her rule was coming from the biggest and the baddest, and with ease she would bend him to her will, even at the point of death.

  “That is your choice,” she said, unperturbed. “Though I should warn you that if you don’t take me up on my generous offer, I will chain you up outside and ring a bell until the dead come and eat you alive.”

  He cursed, but it was reflexive and not loud. He didn’t have the strength to be loud. His muscles seemed to be coming unwound and he felt like lying down and wishing this whole thing away.

  Jillybean saw the look and was not gladdened by it. She hated this as much as he did, but it couldn’t happen any other way. “How many chains should I have brought over?” she asked the four. Two of them shook their head in horror at the idea and the other two, both Tony and Brian could only stare at the floor unable to say or do anything. “Then begin with your apologies.”

  The first began to mumble. “Louder!” one of the guards barked.

  “I-I’m sorry for k-k-killing…” He went on for a long rambling minute before finishing.

  “And now thank the Queen,” the guard said.

  An hour earlier it would have galled this hate-filled Corsair to grovel on his knees in front of a girl, now he was as emotionally wrung out as everyone else. His confession made it easier for the next two men. Then it was Tony’s turn. Before he could start, someone threw a length of rope at him and others began to moan like the dead. The warning was clear: They wanted him to fail.

  He had always told himself he wouldn’t beg for his life and cry like a bitch when it was his turn to go and yet he started in, begging these half-human creatures for forgiveness. It was horrible and humiliating, but it was better than being eaten alive. Even now that they had the upper hand, he didn’t think the people of the warehouse had the balls or the energy to carry out their threat, but Mike and Stu did and each had not relaxed their vigilance for even a second.

  Then, before he knew it, he was thanking this crazy bitch for killing him nicely. Most of him still didn’t believe it. If their places had been reversed, he would’ve chosen that very moment to laugh in her face and then would’ve thrown her off the building with her own damned cat bell chained to her neck. That would have been something, watching her try to crawl away from the dead with a broken ankle.

  But she didn’t do that. She conferred with one of the sickly guards who shuffled off.

  While he was gone, she pronounced the other sentences: Death with a possibility of a reduced sentence—banishment—after a period of hard labor. The four jumped at the chance to become virtual slaves. They saw that it was far better than the alternative as the guard came back by with four plastic bags and a roll of duct tape.

  Jillybean’s quasi-regal bearing took a hit at the sight of them. She suddenly looked young and her cream-colored cheeks turned pasty. Mike didn’t look any better and, as brave as he was, he shied away from the garbage bags. Stu thought things were spinning along so quickly that he felt like he was always playing catch up. What he did know for certain was that Jillybean was taking an awful chance.

  Being part of four executions would bring out Eve and things that seemed so delicately and fortuitously balanced would certainly crumble. He tried to say something only to be stopped by Jenn of all people. “Remember the signs? The crows? Death has to happen. There’s no stopping it.”

  He didn’t scoff as he might have normally done. Signs and omens weren’t real and yet, when Jenn proclaimed having seen something in a flock of birds or a swirl of ash, she had been strangely correct too many times to ignore. It had been her signs that had guided them here…and she had mentioned the birds and what they meant.

  “It’ll be okay,” Jillybean said to them. “I’m prepared.” She stood once more and now it was all the cue her people needed to become quiet and still. She called for volunteers and had more than was needed as the fight had gone out of the four condemned men. They had their hands trussed behind their backs and were pushed to their knees. Jillybean did not ask if they had any last remarks.

  A simple nod began the procedure. The plastic bags were thrust down over the heads of the four and pulled tight so the heads all looked strangely similar, exceeding round and slick. Then, one at a time, the duct tape was wound round and round their necks until the air was cut off. They continued to breathe in the same hot air they had just expelled. When they sucked in, desperately trying to find the last molecules of oxygen all the onlookers could see the ghostly outlines of their faces.

  Everyone stared except Jillybean. Her vision went no further than the fire. She did not look past the dancing flames at the writhing men who fell to their sides one at a time where they squirmed like inchworms.

  Her mind drifted in a fully-directed manner as the warehouse people, her people as she had to think of them now, oohed and ahhed over the deaths. Not that they were memorable deaths. They fell, squirmed for a bit, made animal grunting noises and then went still. The end was anticlimactic and the energy she had built earlier began to wane.

  After the last twitch, she took a long breath and stood, feeling all eyes on her. “Throw the bodies out back,” she casually ordered the four new slaves with a gesture at the bodies. With satisfyingly meek bows, the newly minted slaves hurried to grab the bodies. Stu and Mike went with them, holding their M4s on them, warily.

  When stu and Mike returned, Jillybean said to them and Jenn: “Now for the hard part. We have to save them and we only have two days to do it.”

  Chapter 23

  Jenn was shocked, wondering if she had missed something. “Two days? Why two days? Why, what’s going to happen?”

  The girl was so small and so unassuming that she frequently blended in with the background and it wasn’t the first time Jillybean had overlooked her.

  “We have two days,” Jillybean explained, having recovered her wits, “because of the advanced nature of their disease. They could go downhill quickly and die by the dozens if we don’t act fast.” This, at least was not a lie. The faces coming forward had a nightmare quality and sprang memories into her mind of the early days of the apocalypse when the dead had so
recently been people. They were grey-skinned, had sunken dull orbs for eyes, were covered in lesions and scabs, and walked with a sleepwalker’s uncertain gait.

  Some came up to gaze blankly at their new queen who was so full of vitality that it seemed to come out of her in a glow and if she happened to smile at one of them, they had the odd feeling of being “chosen” in some way, making those around them exceedingly jealous.

  She smiled and nodded at them, with seeming innocence, but in truth she was gauging them, seeing who still had reserves of energy. They were not all equally sick, though it had made sense to fake it when Tony and his Corsairs had been in charge. But she was not so easily fooled.

  She glimpsed a man who had slunk to the edge of the crowd. Willis Firam was one of the strong ones. Although his skin was stretched tight enough across his face to see the skull beneath, he was like an old, spindly root that had a wiry strength to it. When she looked again, he had faded out of the firelight’s glow.

  “Did you see the man in the tattered bathrobe?” Jillybean asked. “The one Stu had called Willis earlier?”

  Jenn knew Willis from their last trip through. He had appeared slightly mad and somewhat dangerous. Jenn did not relish walking out into the warren after such a man. There’d be no telling where he would be—unless you were Jillybean. “He’ll make his way to the offices,” she told Jenn.

  The offices were where the supplies had been kept under lock and key, and which were presently wide open. Now, Jenn had a new reason to be afraid. “You have a gun,” Jillybean reminded her. “And you may take the flashlight. Keep it off until you get close. You don’t want to scare them off.”

  Jenn didn’t want to argue about who was going to be the truly frightened one in the situation, especially as her mind clung to the pronoun Jillybean had used: Them. She was about to ask who the “them” were, but she held her tongue, knowing that Jillybean would probably either frown at her for not thinking on her own or lapse into a long explanation of human nature.